Stella Belmont’s sexual impulse came from cannibalism. Her mouth was the point of origin, the organ that needed to be feared above all others. With that mouth practically touching my bare skin, it was only natural that every nerve in my body screamed in rejection.
Back then, Joanne, twisted as she was, had at least tried in her own way to understand how I felt. Because of that, she’d hesitated when it came to cutting off my limbs, torn between her desires and the faint urge to spare me.
By comparison, Stella was a completely unchained monster. She had even less restraint than Joanne and not a single scrap of consideration for the other person.
“Stella smells other women on you. Not just Joanne,” she murmured.
There was a grinding sound, and her nails dug into my shoulder, biting into the skin.
I had no idea what she was talking about.
A warm, rough tongue, like a cat’s, dragged back and forth across my neck, scraping at the flesh as if to shave it off. The wet, sticky feeling of her saliva snapped a bit of clarity back into my mind.
Calm down. This is just another flavor of deranged obsession. I handled Joanne. If I use that experience, I can defuse this bomb too. Probably.
I couldn’t think of this girl as human. She felt like some kind of ape that had learned to eat people. No matter how beautiful her outward appearance, I simply could not accept her.
The gothic girl who’d been savoring my skin finally lifted her face. “Stella’s got a partial read,” she said. “Stella doesn’t understand the mechanism, but Joanne’s residue is causing an irreversible, extremely malicious change. Stella doesn’t know who the other woman is, but… they’re all doing the most unnecessary things, aren’t they?”
I didn’t understand half of what she was saying. But I figured she was talking about the memory transfer and psychological contamination caused by the organ exchanges.
Above my head, Whip tilted her own, a visible question mark in her tone.
“So basically, Jo-chan and Oakley-chan are into that thing, right?” she said lightly. “Y’know, the whole exchange something and feel super good sort of thing… If they’ve melted into each other a bit, that doesn’t sound like a problem to me.”
“You’re wrong,” Stella said, voice turning cold. “Every last bit of it is impurity that Oakley doesn’t need.”
Her hostility toward Whip was obvious, sharp enough to cut.
Most of that anger was probably directed at Joanne, but hearing her talk like that grated on me.
Joanne, an unnecessary impurity? Don’t screw with me.
What happened with her was a necessary step.
Sure, the result was this half-burned stalemate where nothing was neatly resolved, embers still smoking in the dark, but to call the remnants of that fight, that desperate gamble for survival and reversal, something I didn’t need?
That shallow judgment was what I couldn’t forgive.
“Could you get off of me for now?” I said quietly.
Stella obediently lifted her loafers. For a second, I thought she was actually going to move away. Instead, the sole of her shoe pressed down hard against the bridge of my nose.
A clear sign of rejection.
She ground it in slowly and deliberately.
I looked at her with frustration.
“You smell so good,” she whispered. “Your body is so wonderful. So why did you end up with someone like Joanne? Wouldn’t Stella be better for you? It’s true, Stella started taking an interest in you later than she did. But… to suffer this much, just for being a little late…”
Her expression stayed completely blank, but clear tears spilled from both eyes. The sheer difference in emotional temperature between us left my mind lagging behind.
You only see me as meat, and you still have the nerve to cry?
It was disgusting.
A sick, crawling discomfort punched straight through my chest.
Watching those endless, hot tears roll down her face, I started to wonder if I was the one out of step with reality.
But little by little, I began to understand.
Stella’s tastes weren’t built on normal human logic. It was as if the feelings ordinary people joked about—you’re so cute I could just eat you up—had been grotesquely magnified, stripped of context, and twisted into something endless, rootless, and wrong.
A childish selfishness elevated into an operating principle—that was what ran through her core.
She really was a monster wearing human skin. Holding a proper conversation with her was impossible.
Getting involved with her would end in nothing but loss.
“Anyway,” she went on, voice faintly trembling, “Stella wants to put you back the way you were. Right away. Stella will use every bit of knowledge Stella has and figure something out. And once Stella is done, Stella will eat you properly. Okay?”
Either way, I needed to calm her down before this went any further off the rails.
“I admit I’ve been influenced by Joanne-sama,” I said, keeping my tone as steady as I could. “But I’m not going to become her. I won’t be overwritten. I’m me, and I’m not going to change.”
I am me.
Even if memory transfer were an irreversible kind of erosion, it wouldn’t touch the core.
“And besides, Stella-sama, now is not the time for you to eat me,” I said. “We have a mission, don’t we?”
Her eyes widened. “We have to make Aros-sama’s dream come true…”
“Exactly. Everything has an order of priority, right? So how about you save eating me… for after that dream is realized?”
I tossed out talk of a future that might never come, just to get through this moment alive.
Stella gave a small nod, the madness in her bloodshot eyes slowly losing its edge. Of course, there was no way Aros’s ambition would ever be fulfilled. I’d never let it happen.
One way or another, I planned to kill everyone involved, including Stella.
“Yeah. That’s right,” she murmured. “Stella has Aros-sama’s dream. Stella can’t change the harvest schedule. Aros-sama… Aros-sama… Hahh, deep breaths.”
She wiped the tears clinging to her long lashes, then lifted her long, slender legs and slid off my lap at last. Even with her expression as flat as ever, there was a faint air of satisfaction about her.
Relief washed through me now that the weight on my waist was gone, but at the same time, I felt like I understood her even less than before.
Her obsession with human flesh was beyond abnormal; it was several levels worse than I’d imagined. I had no idea where the landmines were, and reasoning with her was nearly impossible. I’d barely managed to pull her back by invoking Aros’s name, but… personally, she was even harder to deal with than Joanne.
Back in Metasim, I’d thought of her as one of the “reasonable” executives.
Apparently, that had only been because Aros had been the one holding her reins.
How terrifying.
“Well then!” Whip chirped, clapping her hands once. “Now that the spicy little event is over, let’s get down to business!”
She brushed the whole scene aside with a theatrical throat-clearing. There was clearly another reason she’d called me out here at dawn.
“C’mon out, Karatena-chan!”
At that call, a woman stepped out from the darkness.
The woman had ash-gray hair that covered one eye and wore a tight skirt with heels, an outfit that looked extremely impractical for movement.
The moment I saw her, the pieces clicked.
I knew this woman.
“You’re the one from Metasim, the one who helped with the organ exchange…” I said.
“Allow me to introduce myself properly,” she replied, bowing her head just slightly. “My name is Karatena Wallmix.”
Karatena dipped her head in an exaggerated bow, her tone dripping with sarcasm.
“Thank you ever so much for your help back then,” she said.
She exchanged a glance with Whip, and her thin lips curled into a triumphant smile.
“Oakley-chan,” Whip sang, “I’m about to say something really shocking, so don’t freak out on me, okay?”
“What?”
“Karatena-chan here says there’s this little rumor that you might’ve killed Fuankilo-chan!”
I couldn’t hold it in anymore and let out a long sigh.
This was the one thing I’d been truly afraid of. That someone would tip off the heretic executives about the suspicion that I’d killed Fuankilo and I’d end up as the target of an investigation.
And now, that was happening. A frustrated heat rose in my chest, like my blood was flowing backwards. I forced my brain into high gear.
No time to calm down. Did Alex snitch? No, that doesn’t fit. Alex and Karatena aren’t moving in sync.
This woman had to be one of Fuankilo’s subordinates. When she’d helped with the organ exchange, she’d handled the tools with uncanny ease. That alone was enough proof that she’d assisted Fuankilo in her torture work.
She was probably trying to string me up out of personal grudge. If she had solid proof, she would’ve gone at me the way Alex had—directly, to end her revenge swiftly.